Oh believe me when i say, Gyarados is definitely OU. Nothing screams OU like the tanking ability that lets you launch 2 dragon dances before they know what’s going on. Gyarados is like the doom of the late game where there is little that can be done to stop it. Even the mighty Garchomp can be brought to its knees at this fearsome foe that has the awe inspiring attack power in addition to the speed and defenses to use it.

(Somehow even older.) OU is the term they use at Smogon. The only real pokemon forum that let’s you compete against others Online. When someone is OU they are in the top sight of all pokemon. = they are really good competative. They make different group where you can play pokemon, so if you really want to use a weak pokemon (like Delibird) or a mighty legendary (Like Lugia) you can use them in each different group. Like NU(Never-used) and Uber. So you have equal playrules when you play against others.

There’s no question about the latter. Whether his broken brain has the capacity for love is in question let alone having love for Jared. Oh that we could all have our own (effectively) lobotomized dragon servants.

If the tards who made the anime have any semblence of canon Pokémon understanding to them, Magnemite are instinctively drawn to latent electric sources.
i.e. He just has to start up a generator or something outside… and then pick the Magnemite off it once they investigate and get stuck.

((Sorry for the reply years later :P ))
So… the Team Rocket and Flare and Plasma, etc. goons…. still all have their licenses? Even N has a license? Who allows corruption to that level, but still revokes poor little Jared’s license?

Oh I must have misread the second line. Well then it’s all fine in dandy not like Storm could do jack against the Power armor given her power of fly, ground, electric, and water won’t do anything to it…
Though I wonder if one could just pepper the combination with ghost, psy and dark types or just use a lvl 1 rattata.

Incorrect. Water/Flying/Electric/Steel still has one weakness, namely to Electric. Gyarados is doubly weak (4x weakness) to Electric; the added Electric only halves that to a regular 2x weakness. Steel, contrary to many people’s conceptions, does not resist Electric (rather, Electric resists Steel) – though it appears that your mistake here was not that, but rather allowing Electric’s resistance to itself count twice.

So let’s go back to a basic Gyarados: Mr. Fish by himself has a double weakness to Electric and a single weakness to Rock, which we’ll need to get rid of somehow. The former is obviously the primary limiter. To help us, Mr. Fish has several resistances (Fire, Water, Bug, Fighting, Steel) and an immunity (Ground), which will come in handy.

Now, we have two methods of correcting for that double weakness to Electric:

-> Firstly, Jared could add a Pokémon that is doubly resistant (1/4x) to Electric. Only three types resist Electric: Electric, Grass, and Dragon – therefore 3 type combinations are possible, Electric/Grass (i.e., staple a lawnmower-form Rotom to Mr. Fish), Electric/Dragon (i.e., staple Zekrom to Mr. Fish), and Grass/Dragon (currently nonexistent). Though all of these get rid of double weakness, none of them get rid of Mr. Fish’s weakness to Rock, and they all produce additional weaknesses as well (Grass/Dragon is particularly awful). So, this method doesn’t work.

-> Secondly, Jared could add a Ground type (or half-Ground type, as we will see) to Mr. Fish instead. Ground types are immune to Electric, and so that double weakness instantly vanishes. Ground is also resistant to Rock, eliminating that weakness too. However, Ground is weak to Ice, Grass, and Water. Mr. Fish’s resistance to Water negates that third one, but the first two remain:

So, let’s alloy that Ground type with a second (well, fourth) type to see if we can remove those two new weaknesses. Grass and Ice are independently resisted by several types, but only two types resist both Ice *and* Grass: Fire and Steel. If we add Fire, we get rid of those two weaknesses – but we also end up adding another two, Water and Rock. (We could try to reiterate this method (Oy vey!), but that’s outside the parameters of the problem.) However, adding Steel *does* produce good results: Steel is weak to Fire, Fighting, and Ground – Mr. Fish’s resistances cancel the first two (making the new Mr. Fish neutral to Fire and Fighting), and his immunity negates the Ground weakness. Yay! No weaknesses! Adding Steel also adds a whole slew of resistances, though many of them aren’t terribly great – still, they don’t hurt.

Lanturn’s volt absorb ability would make Mr. Fish immune to electric attacks, while Mr. Fish’s flying type would make Lanturn immune to ground attacks. Their water typing would be compatible, leaving only a weakness to rock types.

Have you seen Klink, which follows the trend of this classic one? Yeah, this here is definitively still one Pokeman. The only downside to making twenty Pokemans count as one is still four goddamn moves, but soon enough, Jared should have made his own vulnerability-less, all-types Pokeman.

Basically, yeah. I imagine Warhammer Fantasy Orcs breed the same way, jsut no one has figured that out yet since they are too busy trying to keep from getting killed by Chaos, Dark Elves, Skaven, Undead, rival Imperials, Ogres, etc.

Mr. Fish looks rather determined to me. Maybe he’s just as keen on proving Jared’s dad wrong as Jared is. I can’t think of a better word for ‘wrong.’
Or he always looks like that and I’m just anthropomorphizing him.

False. though the electric part of the Magnemite part negates other electric attacks, the fact that he now has steel as a type makes it so that he will now be hit at 6.5x that of the normal electric attack.

I had a discussion with a friend about quad-weaknesses. He also refused to use psychic and electric types because dark and ground are immune. He also uses a Ditto because he is an imbecile and a noob to the Tenth power.

Wow, seriously? One type they can’t deal damage against and they automatically get the trash heap? Even though Dark types have some of the lowest concentrations in the game? Does he not use Normal or Fighting types because they can’t hit Ghosts or something?

I’ve made it a goal to only use Steel types in the games now and knowing how to work with your three weaknesses(Fighting, Fire, and Ground) makes the game a lot more fun. Plus, the ridiculous amount of resistances and immunity to Poison(lololol who the fuck even uses Poison anymore) outweigh the cons, I believe.

Steel types are BOSS. I’ll be over here with my badass Metagross, fist-fucking everything into the stone age.

Megaton always, always, ALWAYS supplants my starter as my highest leveled PKMN between when I get its lame-o first evolution and the last gym because A) no other PKMN are worth grinding (except Houndour/Houndoom, but I haven’t seen a wild Houndour since the original GSC) B) even if the others were awesome, Megaton would still be twice as awesome and C) Meteor Mash. Second time I played through Ruby, I beat the Elite Four with nothing but a level 70 Megaton and a level 47 Blaziken (and only so I could use Explosion on those tough bitches).

Megaton always, always, ALWAYS supplants my starter as my highest leveled PKMN between when I get its lame-o first evolution and the last gym because A) no other PKMN are worth grinding (except Houndour/Houndoom, but I haven’t seen a wild Houndour since the original GSC) B) even if the others were awesome, Megaton would still be twice as awesome and C) Meteor Mash. Second time I played through Ruby, I beat the Elite Four with nothing but a level 70 Megaton and a level 47 Blaziken (and only so I could use Explosion on those tough bitches).

Beat HeartGold with nothing but an Umbreon I hatched instead of using my starter. Got past the Fighting gym on the third try. Sand Attack & Confuse Ray FTW.
Protip: don’t train anything you won’t use. When you’re training just one Pokemon, before long you’re ten, twenty levels above the competition. At that point, who cares about type advantages?

Power armor like a boss…but wouldn’t that armor..idk…tickle Mr.Fish? Id say go with a rubber (that’s right pokemon ep.1, rubber beats electric) suit, but hey, Mr.Fish probly will end up getting zaped,and using it like resistance training! Go Mr.Fish!
(P.s. this is my first post here :D glad I finaly caught up to the comic)

Damn, I mean, just Damn, I’m with you on that one Mice, I seriously feel for Jared, yeah he has his effeminate moments, but I mean even Robert Pattinson doesn’t deserve the kind of crap Jared’s getting shoveled into his craw by his parents…

Who’s all up for a lynch mob!!!

No?

What about just a call to CFS?

Get a restraining order and an appeal for the Xbox?

I would love to see The Commander give Jared’s parents what-for because they’re emotionally destabilizing his intern…

I’ve got to believe that someone in the agency could make a pretty decent suit of power armor for Mr. Fish. I mean, a few of them are wearing power armor that, in theory, would require maintenance at some point. Either they do that themselves or have a super genius to help them, but in the end, they do have access to SOMEONE who could make it…

I find Raichu’s Sp. ATK is usually less that it’s ATK. Meaning that Raichu’s better with physical attacks rather than specials. (Then again, I generally take out Lance’s Gyarados out with one blow with my Raichu–but I think I gave it vitamins during training…)

Gyrados has never given me much trouble in a fight, but maybe I’ve just been lucky in that respect… God knows my underleveled one in Soul Silver wound up saving me a few times. Get the right pokemon and they can compensate for even 4x weaknesses through tactics, sheer force, or a combination. My Scizor survived a higher leveled Lucario’s Blaze Kick to one shot him with her Brick Break thanks to the species’ high defense and attack. Give a pokemon like Scizor or Gyrados protection from a Light Screen and even the special attacks won’t be as much of a concern.

I believe in general Gyarados’s have low physical defense but respectable special defense. That said the proper sort of trainign and do wonders.

My brother put his Larvitar through a special training regimen, all quick opponents, msotly Flying types.. By the time it was a Tyrannitar it was likely the faster Rock-type pokemon you would ever see.

A very obedient Gyarados ? The kind that is really strong and can really defend him ? And he made it evolve all by himself, while he had no other Pokemon (That we are aware of, anyway) ? Seriously, it’s not nothing.

I wonder how Jared managed to attach a bunch of Magnemites to Mr. Fish without something going horribly wrong in the process. He’s either really good or really lucky. Based on past comics I’m going with lucky.

Is it just me or does that magnamite tied near Mr. Fish’s eye seem to be pleading to be released. I am sure Mr. Fish must be the boogymon that all the little pokemon tell their pokekids to stay far away from on pain of death.

Oh geez. So many magnemites. I can’t help but wonder how he caught so many magnemites and magnetons. That must have taken a lot of time and energy, and yet… I feel like this is the backstory of so many evil villains. They just can’t take their parents’ pressure. OH GAWD JERED’S GOING TO GO CRAZY AND KILL THE COMMANDER AND THEN TAKE ON THE GROUP NAME TEAM GALAT- *is shot*

But yeah. Jered’s got some real childhood traumas. Not being able to reach parental expectations is horrid.

Hurr, my Team back when I was a kid on Pokemon Red was fronted by Gyrados, Aerodactyl and Charizard. One tough lightning pokemon and both of my tanks were down for the count. So I sympathize with Jared on that count.

Although I don’t know, a power armored Gyrados is like the Master Chief of Pokemon. Watchit.

That is one brave Mr. Fish, letting Jared attach all those Electric types to him. I mean, you’d think Mr. Fish would AT LEAST have some sort of deep, primal absolute fear of all things Electric that he can’t eat.

On a side note, I’d love to see Gyrados trying to eat a bunch of Magnemites and Magnetons. Shockingly good jawbreakers!™ A Magnezone would be, like, an Ed, Edd, N’ Eddy jawbreaker.

I’m sure there are ways around that weakness. If I remember correctly, there was an episode involving a starfish Pokemon that could use an electrical attack despite being a water Pokemon. Maybe he should try that.

ha!
unmarked quest: “gotta catch ’em all”
on my first playthrough, i found you gain no infamy or any npc becoming hostile if using a melee attack (i used the displacer? glove thingy)
while hidden. i 1 shot sneak attack killed the entire legion camp except casear and his assistant. including all the dogs. also no karma loss.
yeah, i really don’t like the legion :p

Good God, can I maim Jared’s parents? Please? I mean, they’re seriously complaining about him having a Gyarados!? They’re complaining about a pokemon having a dual weakness to Electricity when several members of various Elite Four teams do a good job of stomping your liver out with one!? If they complain about Gyarados having a dual weakness, would they complain about him having a Salamence, Dragonite, Garchomp, or Flygon, who are are doubly weak to Ice? Or what about a Bisharp, with a double weakness to Fighting, along with Aggron and Bastardon Bastiodon? Volcarona, with a double Rock weakness? How about Toxicroak and its dual weakness to Psychic? What about all the Rock/Ground-types with their dual weaknesses to both Grass AND Water? Would they complain about him having one of those?

Okay, I’m done ranting now, I swear, but Jared’s parents are the biggest jackasses on the planet.

And by double/dual weakness, I mean both of the pokemon’s types being weak to that type of attack. It’s just how my circle of pokenerds refers to it. But I only just realized it would sound confusing/weird to someone else. -facepalm-

No worry, there I got it. -shrug- Maybe they would. We got nothing on his parent’s personalities beyodn that they practically forced him to become a trainer so chances are they have researched this and what to ‘help him avoid making glaring mistakes’ -shrugs- Which sucks because half of the Pokemon you mentioned are some of my favorites to throw down with.

Yeah, a lot of them are my favorites, too, which is why I listed them. I’ve trained every single one that I actually named, with the exception of Bastiodon, and love them all dearly. And most of them would be seriously overpowered if not for the huge weaknesses, so it’s not like having a huge weakness can’t be compensated for.

From the little bit I can tell, his folks should be happy he’s finally out in the world and has a job, but aren’t. Jared might not ever become the Champion of whatever Pokemon League, but he takes good care of Mr. Fish, and that’s they should be proud of.

I feel like I am required to point out that magneton weighs a bunch more than 3 magnemites, and the same goes much more for dugtrio/diglet., Dugtrios, who knows whats down there with them, but I want an explanation for magnetons that I can get while maintaining sufficient laziness over seeing if it is explained in the pokedex.

Well if you look at a Magneton, it’s not jsut three Magnemites. There are a few extra bits added to it somehow when it …reconfigures?

As for the Diglett/Dugtrio, how the heck do they weigh that thign without getting ti out fo the ground anyway? Moving past that, a Diglett seems to barely protrude formt he ground while DUgtrio has two more evelated heads. Weak explanation, but all I have.

I very strongly appreciate that the implication here (that I got, anyway) is that the Commander is a much better father figure to Jared than his own parents are, and that he accepts who Jared is and all that jazz. This was sad, but it made me love the father-son relationship between the Commander and Jared even more. (I never thought a comic about manliness and machismo would emotionally affect me this way!) Repeating another comment, it would be vindicating if the Commander went to have a chat with Jared’s parents, but still, even him just flat-out accepting Jared is the best. THE BEST

Wow. Jared’s old man is an ass. A couple of other anatomical features generally found colocated in that region, too, all italicized, and the ones that start with “c” get bolded, too.

Gyrados is a fucking Disk 1 Nuke if you can grind one up from a Magikarp at the first opportunity. It ain’t easy, god knows it ain’t easy, but if you pull it off, you’ll have a beast. You’ll also be like, 10 levels ahead of the competition and have type advantages forever if you’re playing around in Kanto. By the time you get to having to deal with electric types, they’ll just die in one hit which you get by virtue of Speed advantage, and that quadruple weakness will not be a thing until you face the Elites.

Still, I love Commander Badass’s dramatic imploring at the end there. He’s probably a better father-figure to Jared than his own old man ever was. Plus, I bet if Jared’s so freaked out about this 4x weakness to electricity, Commander Badass can come up with some future tech to insulate him.

Also, is it just me, or has anybody else noticed that the region of North America where Commander Badass has his testosterone-control agency shares its Pokémon encounter set with Kanto, (primarily,) instead of Unova?

I mean, seriously, this Pokémon Park featured in the comic has (at my count,) Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Eevee, Vulpix, Oddish, Marill (not normally found in Kanto but within a boat ride away,) Togepi (also not native to Kanto), and a little white and blue thing I can’t quite identify.

And now we’ve seen Magnemite and Magneton. Granted you can find some of those in Unova, but still, unless Jared’s hanging out with a lot of other Japanese expats, it’s very unlikely you’d find all of those in North America.

ya…. the commander needs to have a “talk” with jared’s parents. or mr. fish needs to go and ‘visit” to show how “weak” he is. glad to see jared looking healthy after playing with andrewsachus….. do you think mr. fish helped out with that little dilemma?

(looks around) i don’t see any more andrewsarchus.i DO see mr. fish. hence, i have to assume mr. fish ate him to save jarred. that, or mr. fish reserves the right to eat jarred one day for going too far.

I’m more curious about how and where Jared managed to get his hands on all Magnemites and Magnetons. And I also believe he should fully evolve one of them and call it either Mr Alien, Mr Saucer or Mr Shippy.

even though i don’t like pokemon much i did cry a little on the inside when i saw pikachu slap fighting himself in the first movie. thats all im going to admit to :p and just in case anyones interested, this looks to be a flash style pokemon gaming web page. but again, im no expert in anything pokè.http://pokefarm.org/

There might be a number of ways you can do this. Since I don’t know much about comic design, here’s what I came up with:
Changing the tail, like Stan said, could provide a better indication that a person is speaking through the phone, but I don’t know if that alone is enough.
Changing the shape of the bubble was a good idea, but this change needs to be more pronounced, making it square instead of round isn’t noticeable enough (specially if the square still has round corners). But if you also change the font that the person on the other side uses (maybe making it italic) that could do the trick.
Actually, that last one might be the simplest: just make the letters italic.

Do what I did: Fire up an emulator and play LeafGreen/Fire Red. Get “ripped off” and buy a Magikarp from the ripoff magikarp guy, use the speed-up functions to increase the speed of your grinding, and grind up your Mr. Fish to a Gyrados before you even enter Mt. Moon.

You’ll tear through everything in sight. By the time you start facing Electric types, you’ll be hitting them so fast and so hard they won’t even get a shot in.

Also, why do I want to see Commander Badass and maybe some of the other guys attending a Pokémon fight to see Jared and Mr. Fish in action (maybe double-teaming with Turok and Andrewsarchus?) Sure, they may be cute as hell, but the sport is fucking hardcore, kids kicked out of home at ten to wander the wilderness, capturing wild animals and making them first for people’s entertainment?

The thought of Commander Badass, Leonidas and Duke Nukem as the only three big burly guys in a crowd of weedy guys hooting and hollaring and cheering Jared on like football hooligans makes me snicker and giggle.

The problem is one of them might have a few too many, and try and get in the ring to join the battle. It’s one thing to hit a pokemon with another pokemon, it’s quite another to try and punch a hitmonchan before it punches you.

I was an animator and sometimes layout artist. Each episode had a team of five or six people to do all of the animation, so I was on the crew for episode 2, 6, and the season finale, as well as helping out with some stray scenes from other episodes, revisions, and I did a couple scenes in the intro theme.

I used to work on a show for APTN called By The Rapids, then I was on Ugly Americans, then Good Vibes, and since that wrapped up I’ve been working on some shorts, web series, concept stuff for assorted pitches, logos, that kind of thing.

You know, I was really not into Ugly Americans at first, but it grew on me. Which, coincidentally, was how it turned out with this webcomic. “Yeah, this lass is pretty funny with the macho mockery and such, but I can see that getting old pretty qu– OHMYGAWD I love this Jared person. Oh, okay, I’ll add it to the list.” *Ctrl+D*

Turns out, doesn’t get old. Yeah. At least not yet, but until then you’re staying in my top five still-running webcomics.

why would he keep it, he will melt them down to forge a real power armor for mr.fish, kinda like how the magnetons melt together into magnezone, melted magnemite&ton all over his mr.fish for protection, then add a rocketlauncher….for good measure

Last con I was at (Ayacon ’11), some dude was cosplaing as Mr. Fish. Made my day, but he was too drunk to understand or respond to my friend and I screaming “Mr. Fish, Mr. Fish!” at him across the quad. That’s just how manly this guy was. He could only have been more manly if his friend had been cosplaying Mr. Chips.

Hmm . . . now that hes Water/Flying/Electric/Steel I don’t think he has any weaknesses anymore, and now he has some new nifty resistances :D Plus the defensive power gained from being part steel, as well as the added sp.atk bonus from the magnemite/tons makes him an even greater tank, and a mixed sweeper :D

OMG has anyone else noticed the facial expression on Mr. Fish? He is either un-caring of his own plight, or he is about to bite Jared in half, I’m not entirely sure which. On a side note, i can TOTALLY see Jared having to put one of those Dog cone-collars on Mr. Fish so that he doesnt gnaw at the magnemites. I also hope Jared is being careful not to tie those lines too tight, wouldn’t want Mr. Fish to get an embolism. =P

Oh and Coel :D What should the word ‘Epic’ be used for? My husband just said it for youtube video titled “Nyan Cat Falls In Love” And said it was epicly sad. *puts money in the jar* I have been thinking of making my own jar of that word irl :P So many abuse it

Nay. I will grant that some of the new pokemon are completely horrible… Howevery there are a fairly large number of decent lookingones… And lets face facts… Mr. Mime is horrible looking, if it had been in any of the newer generations… It would hav been soooooo hated.

Pokeball Pokemon, that flips over when it evolves.
Mole Pokemon, which gets TWO extra heads when it evolves.
Magent Pokemon, which gets TWO extra magnets when it evolves.
Pile of goop Pokemon, that just gets bigger when it evolves.

At least the ice cream Pokemon gets other changes as well, such as cone shape and “decorations.”

Why don’t you tell me, then, what exactly is so terrible about each fifth gen Pokemon? Clearly there is no “awesome” one like Snorlax that “makes up” for the “terrible” Pokemon in this gen. So instead of me grasping at straws, why don’t you just list out the negatives of each one? That would be much easier for you, don’t you think?

Gyarados has always been a favorite of mine, mainly just for how badass he looks. And yeah, I’m that mediocre pokemon player/trainer person who plays the game and chooses pokemon just based on how “cool” they are (read: how badass they look). I’spose this is why, despite the obvious weakness of having a team of basically all one-type, I generally end up with an all Dragon team. :D After all, I’m playing to see some awesomely badass crits Dragonebreath//Hyperbeam/Waterfall/Flamethrower etc. other crits to untimely deaths.

Also, while I know that what Jared’s dad said has got to be devastating on many levels, I believe that his tears are mostly due to the fact that he just discovered the horrifying fact that his beloved Mr. Fish has a quadruple weakness to electricity. He’s just trying to protect him! ::sniff:: Tis such a touching tale…

I would love love love to see Jared collect a Charizard, Salmence, Tyranitaur, Dragonite etc. It would just be so awesome if this (for all intensive purposes) idiot savant of a pokemon trainer suddenly had all these badass, dangerous creatures following him around with the same unyielding loyalty as Mr. Fish, much to the chagrin of other trainers and everyone around him.

As ever, Mr. Fish’s “What the fuck ever” expression totally make this whole strip. Though, I did wonder why he doesn’t sort of fly everywhere if he’s a flying type? I like the look of him slithering down the street, either way.

Type effectiveness-wise, I notice Gyarados is actually a little better off than Dragonite. They’ve both got a x4, but Dragonite has one more x2. (And Ice type attacks are super common. Practically any Water type can be packing one.)

wait..pink eyes…? they have red or blue eyes depending oin which version you choose, black if you far enough back and white if its a legendary red garados ( i don’t care if it had a X4 weakness it was the sickest pkmn tank ive ever seen).

Actually Jared all you have to do my boy is expose mr fish to small amounts of electricity over a period of time like people do with poison to build up a resistance. But honesly i dont think mr. fish has a weakness to anything because he always looks bored and unlike regular pokemon he’ll just eat the enemy pokemon so even the toughest trainer owned pokemon would have trouble with him. Youve done good boy. Youve done real good..

i also like how it’s made completely out of magnemite…or magneton…whateveritis…which he’s weak too since they’re steel/electric types. i guess that’s why it’s POWER ARMOR!!!!!!(of epicness) *puts a dollar in epic jar*

His parents don’t know shit. Quad elec weak is hardly a danger for Gyarados and his typing actually makes his quad weak far and away the easiest to work around for competitive play. Jeez. His parents spend all their time criticizing their son for not being involved in pokemon but they’re so bad at it themselves. Isn’t that always how it goes?